Long Story on Faith – Everybody Has Something to Offer

Raoul Samanth is visiting the grave of his childhood friend Sameer Rastogi. His children ask him who Sameer is. Raoul says, “Sameer is the reason that 1 have faith.

Sameer is the reason I believe there is a God out there somewhere and he is looking out for us.” He gets back into the car and the children ask him to tell them about Sameer. Raoul starts his story.

On December 25^th 1970, Vrinda Rastogi was admitted in to Shrinagar’s only hospital. She was immediately rushed into surgery. After a five hour long operation, Sameer Rastogi was born. Baby Sameer was afflicted with Morquio’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder which causes dwarfism. His father Shrinagar’s macho man who held the districts record for woodcutting was ashamed of his deformed son.

Vrinda, Sameer’s mother had to bear the brunt of Sameer’s father’s wrath. She was intimidated by her husband and eventually took to neglecting Sameer to appease her husband. Sameer grew up unloved and uncared for. Sometimes when Sameer and Vrinda were alone. She would tell him how he had survived despite the odds. She would tell him that he was a miracle sent to her from God. Sameer grew up hanging on to the faith that he was special and God had made him like that for a reason.

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When I was seven years old my mother moved to Srinagar. I hated the cold weather and I hated the new school. On Father’s day when my father did not turn up at school no one gave it much thought but then came the day when it was my Dads turn to come and talk about his profession and I had to admit that I didn’t know who my father was and my mom did not know where he was.

After that school was torture. Everywhere I went I would hear the children jeering me. All the kids who used to like me before began to call me names. On a Sunday afternoon my mother and I as was our ritual, every Sunday went to the temple. My mother was beautiful.

Everywhere we went, people would stop what they were doing just to look at her. She had that effect on most people. Sameer was no exception. He suddenly materialized in out path and putting his hands together said, Namaste Auntyji!! I’m Sameer.

You can call me Sam. I am Raoul’s classmate. Sameer had a cherubic face and because he was so little my mother couldn’t resist picking him up and cuddling him. My mother was as kind as she was beautiful. She invited Sameer over for Sunday lunch. And that’s how my friendship with Sameer started.

My home, we soon became inseparable. I guess it was the fact that everybody ridiculed us that brought us closer. I was big in built, bigger than all the boys in class, but I was also very shy. Sameer on the other hand was tiny but he had a tongue that was sharper than his keen mind. So while I protected Sameer from the big bullies in our class, Sameer always had a quick retort when someone passed a comment on me.

Together we were a team. We went for long walks together, we played together and most days Sameer joined me and my mom for supper. My mother didn’t mind and his mother couldn’t have cared less.

That summer my mom enrolled me for swimming class. I learned to swim really fast and in a years time I was the best swimmer in my district in my age group. Sameer’s parents refused to enroll him for swimming so he would just come along with me and watch. I promised him that once I was confident I would teach him to swim.

The following summer Sameer took his first plunge into the water. He was like a fish in water. He was so happy that he wanted to swim all the time. He would make me race him to the end of the pool. Of course I always won because I was bigger but he didn’t mind. However he always beat me at holding his breath under water. It was his favorite game. He would make me count as he held his breath under water. By the end of that summer Sameer could hold his breath for three minutes and I was still stuck at one minute.

Then into our lives walked Rishabh Malhotra. He was our new drama teacher. How he met my mother I never found out but one day he arrived home for dinner. Soon my mom and Rishabh became very close and I didn’t like his intrusion in our lives.

Rishabh was kind to me and made many attempts to befriend me. One day he brought me a beautiful trumpet. Its not that I didn’t like the trumpet, I did. I just did not want to give him any importance. Sameer was home that day for dinner and when I didn’t accept the lift he asked me if it was okay if he took the trumpet and after that Sameer and the trumpet were inseparable.

Fourth grade had its share of problems, but somehow we managed. Sameer often got in to trouble with Father Martin, because he was outspoken. He always wanted an explanation and he questioned everything Father Martin had to say.

He had to stay back at school at least once a week because we would invariably get into trouble with Father Martin. I wondered why Father Martin was always at loggerheads with Sameer. But I guess it was Sameers optimism despite his shortcomings that gave everybody around him a complex. He really believed that he was a miracle. He believed that God had some divine purpose for him.

The days when he would get teased at school he would rush to the temple and pray. “Please God, I know you have a plan for me, just quickly show me the way”. One day Father Martin called my mother to school and warned her to keep me away from Sameer. My mother was not to be impressed, she turned around and told Father Martin, “Christianity teaches you to love your brother as you love yourself. Perhaps Father Martin you need to learn from my son.”

Fourth grade was special for Sameer for a special reason. For the first time in his life he was chosen to play cricket for the class. Sameer was excited, like every other Indian boy he idolized Sunil Gavaskar. The match was to be held at the Round Stadium. When he invited his parents to come see him play, his father forbid him to make a fool of himself.

But Sameer had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. He asked my mother if she would come to watch him play. She said she would be happy to! On 15^th July Sameer walked to the crease to take his position at the crease as eleventh batsman. He looked around. He knew that this was his only chance. His eyes tried to find my mother in the stand but found mine instead.

My mother was running late. I gestured with him to get on with the game; mom would be arriving any moment now. The ball was a bouncer but it caught the edge of Sameer’s bat and rose high in the air. All of us watched with bated breath as the ball climbed the air and moved over the fence and then suddenly all hell broke loose. The ball had hit someone standing near the fence. That someone was my mother. The force of the ball was fatal. My mother was soon dead.

The weeks following my mother death were the worst of my life. Sameer couldn’t face me and neither could I. Then one day he rang my doorbell and when I opened the door I found my trumpet along with a note. It said,” Dear Raoul. I am sorry I killed your mother. I loved her and I miss her as much as you do. She was the only mother I had too.” I had always known that it was not Sameer’s fault that my mother was dead, but I was a just a little boy who had lost his only mother. That night I crept up to Sameer’s house and stood outside his house playing the trumpet. He came out, we hugged one another, we cried together, we were still best friends.

School life went on as usual. Since I had no family other than my mother, Rishabh Malhotra took me under his wing. He expressed his desire to adopt me but I wanted my real father. Rishabh promised me that if he ever came to know who my father was he would tell me. I felt guilty for not having treated him better.

My mother would have liked that. But thoughts of my father plagued me. I wanted to know who my father was, why he had not accepted me. Sameer promised to help me find my father. But we had only one clue to my father. It was a remark my grandmom had made years ago. Mom and she were having a fight and I overheard grandmom say, “What kind of man can live in the same district and disown his own son.” It was a place to start. We knew he was someone we knew and he was someone who lived in our community. I had blue eyes and mom had brown eyes, so I deduced that probably my Dad had blue eyes as well.

Sameer and I quickly made a list of all the men in our community who had blue eyes. We came up with three names. One was Mr. Barucha who was seventy-five years old, one was Mr. Saliguru who was forty five years old and our cricket coach Mr. Tiwari who was the same age as Mr. Saliguru. We scratched off Mr. Barucha off the list because we thought he was too old.

Mr. Saliguru had just come to live in our community two years back so that left us with Mr. Tiwari the cricket coach. Immediately our minds began to race. Perhaps that was the reason mom was more fond of cricket than other moms?? If it was Mr. Tiwari then he had to have watched mom die. And then Sameer came up with a brilliant idea. He asked me, Raoul where is the ball??? Which ball I asked him. The ball that killed your mom???? I stared at him blankly and then it dawned on me what he was trying to tell me. If Mr. Tiwari was my father then he might have kept the ball that killed my mother.

I know it sounds stupid now. But back then it was the only idea we could come up with. So that night we made plans to break into the Mr. Tiwari’s office at school. We were hoping to find the ball in his room. We managed to get into the room. We did not find the ball but we got caught in the process. We were dragged into Father Martin’s quarters the same night.

After giving us a long lecture on how bad we were he punished us. Our punishment was that we would have to accompany the first- grade children to a school retreat. All boys hate retreats and we were no different. It meant hours spent praying and singing. There were still two weeks left for the retreat. But before that Sameer had to deal with Gokulashtami.

Sameer hated this part of the year because every year since he had been admitted to school he was chosen to play child Krishna. He hated it. It meant going for practice and while all the older boys got to play other roles he always got to play the baby.

But the other younger children who acted as his friends in the play absolutely loved Sameer. He was older and yet he did not intimidate them like we did. So to add to the frustration of playing child Krishna, Sameer had to put up with being followed by the little kids all the time. On the day of the play, Sameer climbed the pyramid of boys to get to the curd.

Just when he reached out for the curd he felt a big sneeze coming. With Sameer’s sneeze the whole pyramid came down like a pack of cards. The second time they built the pyramid Sameer stood once more at the top. This time he didn’t want to make any mistakes so he reached out for the pot of curd with both his hands.

The pyramid gave way and Sameer was left hanging in midair to the pot of curd. The whole audience was in splits. Father Martin took offence and blamed the entire incident on Sameer. He took away Sameer’s cricket cards and said he would not be allowed to go to the retreat. I would have to go on my own. Although we hated the idea of the retreat we had been looking forward to spending time together.

The day of the retreat Sameer came to see me off. All the little boys who knew him from the Gokulashtami play waved to him. He was popular with them. I got in to the bus and turned to wave him goodbye but Sameer had already left.

That night Sameer stole into Father Martin’s office to get back his cricket cards. He found his cricket cards but he also found a cricket ball. Now what was a cricket ball doing in Father Martin’s office??? It didn’t take long for Sameer to figure out that Father Martin was my father because Father Martin also had the same blue eyes like I did.

But I was gone so Sameer rushed over to Rishabh Malhotra’s home and told him and together they left in Rishabh’s car to go to the school retreat. But by the time they reached there. Father Martin had already confessed to me. Father Martin stayed back at the retreat house. Sameer and I rode back in the bus with the kids trom first grade while Rishabh drove back the car.

The weather was gloomy. It had been raining incessantly the whole day. Suddenly the bus jerked violently and when we looked out the window we realized that there was land slide. For countless seconds the bus stood precariously on the edge of the pond. Some of the kids started screaming, the others were crying. Sameer was hanging on to the rod of the seat.

Suddenly in his most mature voice he said,” Calm down kids. Me and Raoul, we are going to take care of you. Just stay quiet and do as I say”. The moment he finished saying that, the bus took another lurch and the bus tipped over into the pond. I was terribly scared and looked at Sameer. Sameer’s face was white but he wasn’t scared. He rushed the children to the back of the bus which was still above the water.

The driver was not to be seen anywhere. He asked me to push the rear window open and handed me one kid at a time. It was pouring hard and thankfully the bank was not too far. I started swimming back and forth with the kids. In the end there was just Sameer and one other boy left. I swam back to help them but by then the whole bus had gone under the water and I couldn’t see Sameer at all. When the bus lurched the last time the little boy slipped out of Sameer’s grasp and disappeared under the water.

Sameer took a deep breath, like the many breaths he had taken when he had gone swimming with me and went under the water. That day I’m sure that Sameer broke his own record of three minutes underwater. He found the boy and swam back to the surface. By then Rishabh who had been driving his car caught up with us. That day the undisputed hero was Sameer.

We were rushed to the hospital. The whole town had heard about our rescue operation. When I recovered I walked over to Sameer’s room. He was in critical care. I knew he was going to die. My eyes were moist and I was scared to see him with all the tubes running in and out of him. But he winked at me and said, “I told you God put me here for a purpose.”

Finally Sameer’s faith had paid off. Sameer did not have many hours left so the whole school, each and every student, each and every parent, each and every teacher who came to visit Sameer was allowed to visit him that day.

Many came with get well cards but the thing that made Sameer the most happy was when the schools prettiest girl walked up to him and hugged him and said, “Sameer you are my hero”. The next day Sameer died.

As for me Rishabh your grandfather adopted me. I knew who my real father was but Rishabh was the one who cared enough to stand up for me. So I came to think of your grandfather as my real father.